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About the Course
History and Politics is a Joint School which allows undergraduates to inform themselves about, and to participate in, many of the most exciting theoretical and practical debates in the disciplines of History and Politics.
It is a challenging course covering many of the areas where the latest research is transforming the parent Schools. Teaching takes the form of tutorials and classes, many of which will be organised and taken by the Fellows and Lecturers of the College. You will receive tuition from Fellows and Lecturers of other colleges, especially on the History side of the course.
Attendance at, and production of work for, tutorials and classes is compulsory, and must be given priority over all other activities. The University organises courses of lectures which cover the syllabus, but which are not compulsory, and which are not designed to prepare candidates for a particular examination paper. Tutors will, however, be happy to advise undergraduates concerning which lectures are likely to prove most beneficial.
The first year examination, Prelims, is taken in June at the end of the first year. Candidates must offer four subjects for examination:
1. a period of British History
2. ‘Theories of the State’ or ‘Theories of the Democratic State’
3. a choice between:
a) Historiography (the evolution of history writing from Tacitus to Weber)
b) an in-depth study of one of seven historical texts in a foreign language (Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Russian)
4. An introduction to the Practice of Politics, where you will study how democracies function in terms of the formal institutions, political parties and voters
The Final Examination (known as the Final Honour School) is taken at the end of three years.
In History, you must study two further subjects of British or European History as outlined above under (1), taking a term for each subject. You will also spend two terms working on Politics, where you have to pick two of the following papers: Comparative Government, British Politics and Government in the 20th Century, Theory of Politics, International Relations and Political Sociology. You can then bias your study towards Politics and History: though you have to do one more paper in History and one in Politics, you may wish to focus on a specialised paper in History (involving extensive study of primary texts and chosen from 26 topics on offer: e.g. ‘The Development of the Third Reich’, ‘The Great Society’ [1960s America], ‘English Architecture 1660-1720’) and take a general course in Politics, or you may wish to take a more specialised course in Politics, and take a more general course in History.
Finally, you must write a dissertation based on your own research, supported by tutorials, of up to 12,000 words in length, in either History or Politics. This brief introduction has not been able to do full justice to the sheer breadth and variety of subjects that are on offer, made possible by one of the world’s largest History and Politics faculties. We only ask that you take full advantage of this opportunity: History and Politics should not be seen as an easy option to concentrate solely on the World since 1800 and ignore everything that happened before.
You will be expected to attend about five lectures per week during the first year, participate in regular meetings with tutors to discuss work, research in libraries, and write at least one essay a week. You will be required to submit a thesis which will enable you to do a piece of independent research during your second and third years. You are very much in charge of your own timetable, which means that if you are well organised you can easily fit in all the other activities for which Oxford students are renowned. Jesus College students, for example, run a lively History association, the J. R. Green Society, the oldest student History Society in Oxford. It hosts informal talks and organises a number of social events each year.
